ACT Expo Session Touts Benefits of Propane School Buses

In a general session at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo held last week in Long Beach, California, Tucker Perkins, chief business development officer at the Propane Education & Research Council, discussed the benefits of propane-powered school buses.

Perkins called the school bus the “face of urban mobility” and noted that each morning, 9,000 propane school buses take half a million children to school each day in the U.S.

“That market didn’t even exist seven or eight years ago, and today, every manufacturer has a (propane) product,” he said.

Perkins went on to add that some of the benefits that users of propane buses cite are cleaner emissions, the fact that propane is a domestic fuel, ease of maintenance and reduced costs. Administrators, he said, often say that the savings in fuel and maintenance allow for money to be spent elsewhere, such as in hiring more teachers and buying additional equipment for extracurricular activities.

“A fundamental shift has occurred, and we’re looking for that fundamental shift to occur in other facets of urban mobility,” said Perkins.